Playground

Kathy works at an elementary school. She promised the kids she would make a cake for them if they behaved well over a period of time. They did. So she made the cake. This was the first time Paul helped out on a cake. This was when they discovered the joy of building cakes together.

The children requested to have certain playground aspects. There are swings, a soccer field, a skate park, and a school bus. Rice Krispie treats were used quite a bit, as were Twizzler Pull 'n Peel. Pepperidge Farm Pirouette rolled wafers (cookies) and melted chocolate round out the ingredients for the decorations. The cake is two layers of Funfetti cake mix, covered by home made fondant. Kathy put a lot of work into that. It is cheaper to buy the ingredients in comparison to the pre-made fondant, but it does take a lot of effort.

The supports for the swings are the cookies, painted with melted orange chocolate. The flat swing is crafted from fondant, the "tire" swing is a small frosted donut. The "chains" are Twizzler pieces. The sand pit is Rice Krispie treat.

Here we have the soccer field. The goal frame is cookie, painted with frosting. The field lines are frosting. Kathy crafted the soccer ball out of a large marshmallow, Paul painted the black spots with melted chocolate, applied using the almost pentagonal shape of the end of a Pull 'n Peel Twizzler. Kathy's mom wove the net out of Twizzlers.

The skate park was carved out of Rice Krispie treats and painted over with melted chocolate. We bought some spray on black food color, but for some reason it made the fondant taste like burning (we always sample parts of the cake along the way, for quality assurance). We ditched the spray color in favor of melted chocolate. It turned out very nicely.

Finally, the school buss. Carved from a block of Rice Krispie treats, painted with melted chocolate and a Twizzler as a brush, and wheeled with York Peppermint Patties, this bus was actually functional in that it could roll on it's wheels.

The little people on the cake were bought at the store, we aren't that crafty yet. This cake was prepared in May 2011.

Pirate Ship

In honor of National Talk Like a Pirate Day, we have made this cake:

We came up with the idea and quickly sketched out some plans and decided what materials we would need. Throughout the process of building the cake we experienced a range of emotions. At first the cake was looking like a brown rocket ship, but we persevered and eventually the finished product is quite obviously a pirate ship. We are very pleased with the outcome.

The cake is made of three layers of 9" x 13" sheets. For fun, we used one layer of yellow cake, one layer of chocolate, and one layer of strawberry; it's a Neapolitan style cake!

We are using boxed cake mixes for convenience, but making our own icing. This time we used a recipe for creamy white icing, and added a half cup of cocoa powder for coloring. The cocoa powder had a dual effect by taking some of the sweetness out of the icing, which usually isn't a good thing, but in this case, it was alright. Creamy white icing is sugary!

After stacking the layers we used a knife to carve out the boat shape. Kathy iced and styled the wood planking. Paul created deck rails, a bow, and a rudder housing using cocoa crisped-rice treats. The mast is made from skewers wrapped in fondant, colored with black food coloring. The sail is also fondant, colored with yellow and red food coloring, and rolled out on the same spot as the black fondant. Residue from the previous coloring helped give the sail a weathered look.

Kathy fashioned the "skull and cross-bones" out of fondant and black food coloring "paint." We made a cannon out of fondant and housed it between two chocolate covered graham crackers. Malted milk balls were used as a pile of reserve cannon balls nearby. The anchor and chain were formed from fondant, along with the ship's wheel. A few candy blocks round out the deck's accoutrement, stacked neatly by the mast.

For water we used some blue colored frosting accented by white frosting; a technique we learned while making a tropical island cake last week (we'll post pictures of it soon). The whole cake took a few hours to put together and was a lot of fun. With each cake we make we feel more capable and learn new skills. If you have ideas for a cake, post them in the comment section, we are always looking for new ideas!

Introduction

Welcome to our cake blog! We are amateur cake decorating enthusiasts and wanted to show off our amazing creations through this blog. Maybe someday we will open a bakery and decorate cakes professionally, but for now it is simply a once-in-a-while activity for us to have fun. If you need a cake for any occasion, let us know. We'd love to design something fun and delicious for you!

Whenever we make a cake we will take pictures and do a post about it. We have done three cakes together so far and will post pictures for those over the next few days.

-Paul and Kathy